Run and Remember
by Gryffyn Addams
Summary: Gingka Hagane doesn't beyblade anymore. He doesn't do anything that has something to do with beyblade. Why, you ask? Because after everything he's been through, he's come to realize: the universe doesn't care. Warning: rated T cause it involves character death and Gingka being seriously out of character. *Will be continued! Swearsies!*


**So... I got this idea at like one in the morning last night, after watching an episode of _Doctor Who_ roughly twelve hours earlier. I guess you could call it a plotty-wotty thing. ;) **

**Anyway, this chapter involves character death, and will basically be probably one of the darkest stories I'll ever write on this website. Which is... pretty cool, actually. So to those who are reading this, be warned: character death and Gingka Hagane being seriously out of character involved.**

* * *

A man in his early twenties watched from a distance (in a tree, to be exact) as a group of young boys battled each other with their beyblades. He listened to them laughing and shouting, at the moment completely oblivious to the world around them.

He had been like that once. Energetic, happy, laughing, and also, he now saw in hindsight, naive.

Then again, weren't all people a bit naive sometime in their lives?

 _"There was nothing we could do, I'm afraid."_

Shutting the bad memories out of his mind, he nimbly jumped down from the tree branch he was perched on, and started off down the sidewalk. Hardly anyone looked at him and saw a celebrity anymore. It had taken a while, but the media had realized that he wanted to be left alone. And they did just that. In a way, he had disappeared, but was still living where he had lived ever since he had become of legal age. Nowadays, people looked at him and saw a human, and nothing else. And he intended to make sure it stayed that way.

After a while, he returned to his apartment. He grabbed a photograph that was in a wooden picture frame and flopped down on the couch. Wistfully, he gazed at the father and son in the picture. They were both smiling and laughing, with the son on the father's shoulders. There was also a picture of the same boy with another boy and a dog.

Gingka Hagane sighed as he remembered the three of them.

He had never shown two of them just how much he cared about both of them.

He had tried to save one of them, thinking that the universe owed it to him.

He had lost all three of them in one week.

* * *

 _Gingka anxiously paced back and forth in front of the door, while biting his fingernails in the process._

He has to live, _he thought._ He has to!

 _Finally, the door opened, and the doctor came out. He looked up._

 _"Well?" he demanded. "How is he?"_

 _"I'm..." the doctor started. "There was nothing we could do." He walked over and placed a hand on Gingka's shoulder, as what the doctor was saying sunk into the seventeen-year-old._

 _"I'm so sorry."_

* * *

 _The rumbling of the rocks sounded in his ears as he ran towards the entrance of the cave. Even as the rocks piled up, blocking the entrance, he could still see his childhood friend inside._

 _"Hyoma!" he called. "Don't worry, I'll get you out of there!"_

 _Hyoma shook his head. "You'll get trapped too." He gave his best friend one last grin. "We had a good run, didn't we, Gingka?"_

 _A second after he said that, the bigger rocks fell, blocking the entrance completely._

 _Gingka could only scream "Hyoma!" as he clawed through the wall of rocks, even though he knew it was pointless._

* * *

 _Hokuto's eyes cracked open, and he looked up at Gingka, who had tears trickling down his cheeks. The blader looked ashamed at what he was doing as he brushed leaves and stray branches off his fur. The tree that had fallen on the dog lay forgotten on its side to Gingka's right._

 _"It's... alright... to cry... Gingka," Hokuto gasped. "It's... understand... able."_

 _"I can't lose you too!" Gingka sobbed. "Not after Father and Hyoma! Why does it always happen to me?!"_

 _The dying dog didn't say anything, only gazed up at Gingka, with a penetrating stare that made the blader feel as if he were staring right through him._

 _"Keep... living... the way you are... Gingka," Hokuto whispered. "You cannot... fade away... into nothing..."_

 _And with that, Hokuto closed his eyes, and didn't open them again._

* * *

It was then, Gingka contemplated, that he had finally realized something about the universe: it didn't care. It didn't care that he had saved the world three times. It had still taken away his father, Hyoma, and Hokuto.

At first, he had refused to even believe it to be true. But after a full week of crying himself to sleep at night, refusing to speak with anyone, and wandering aimlessly around Koma Village, he believed it. Believed it entirely, in fact.

His friends had been shocked to see his change in attitude when he returned without his father. At first, they had tried to talk with him, to try and find out about what happened, but they soon realized the pointlessness of it. They figured out that he wanted to be left alone, and decided amongst themselves to help him, in the hope that he would snap out of it soon.

And they had helped. Madoka had patiently ushered reporters out of the B-Pit when they came to try and obtain information; Kenta and Benkei had deliberately set reporters on false paths with reasonably feasible stories about his whereabouts; when Tsubasa became the director of the WBBA, he had told security that any reporters trying to obtain information were to be escorted out immediately; Kyoya told them flat-out that Gingka wanted to be left alone, along with Hikaru, who just so happened to be the landlady of the flat across the street.

But while they continued to help him with his isolation, that didn't mean they approved of it. And while Gingka appreciated their help, he knew very well that they didn't approve of what he was doing.

Gingka's eyes flickered over to the picture of him, Hyoma, and Hokuto. He remembered what Hokuto's last words to him were.

"Keep... living... the way you are... Gingka. You cannot... fade away... into nothing..."

 _How would you know, Hokuto?_ Gingka thought bitterly as he gently threw the picture onto the coffee table. _You're dead._

* * *

 **... I did warn you.**


End file.
